


Rescue

by TheStrange_One



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Pining, Protective Eddie Brock, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), collapsed building, depending on how you see border control, helpful Eddie Brock, minor law breakage, plot relevant texts, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrange_One/pseuds/TheStrange_One
Summary: Deadpool has been sending Spider-Man a text roughly every thirty minutes for almost two years.One day, those texts stop.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 60
Kudos: 524





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So--I might have found this half-finished in my WIP (Work-In-Progress) folder, so I might have spent the last couple of days finishing it. Maybe. Hope you all enjoy!

It wasn’t unusual for SHIELD to have jobs for Deadpool that were in other countries. Those jobs could take anywhere from a few days to a few months to complete, especially since Deadpool was trying to cut down on the cutting down, so to speak. It was okay though. Even if the goons form SHIELD still looked at him like he was something that had crawled off the bottom of a boot, he still friends.

All three of them.

But it’s fine. Three’s better than none. And they all liked him.

Well. They _tolerated_ him. And _one_ of them was none other than New York City’s own wonderful, fantastic Spider-Man!

Okay, so Webs was less of Deadpool’s friend and more of Deadpool’s parole officer, but it totally counted! The web-slinging superhero would totally work with Deadpool. They even _ate_ together!

True, Spider-Man was always a few feet away and made sure the food was between them. True, sometimes the vigilante would swing away in the middle of eating. And true, he never accepted any of Deadpool’s offers to go play games or anything.

But that was fine. Webs would _totally_ miss him if he was gone.

(No he wouldn't.)

And he _knew_ that Webs liked him, because he had the vigilante’s phone number! He didn’t use it for much, just the occasional picture…

(Every thirty minutes.)

But it was fine! Spidey must like the pictures, because he never told Deadpool to stop sending them! Who cared if Spidey never responded to the pictures? He knew it wasn’t a burner phone, because they’d clearly been read by the other phone.

“All right,” Douche1 yelled over the roaring of the copter blades. Deadpool shot a pic of him, outlined by the light coming in through the open door of the chopper and quickly sent it to Spidey. Why not? He knew that Spidey had a certain—appreciation, wink-wink nudge-nudge, for good photography.

“Deadpool, are you listening?” demanded Douche1.

“No,” admitted Deadpool as he stowed the phone away in one of his pouches. “These things are always the same. Touch down in the jungle. Get shot at. Fight the guys shooting at us. Try not to destroy anything with information. Blah blah blah, repeat last Wednesday. Are we there yet?”

Douche1’s eyes bulged as his throat convulsed, but before he could actually say anything, the chopper touched down. “Time for me to earn my money!” cried Deadpool as he leaped up and skipped out of the chopper. He had to buy that food for his little wall-crawling vigilante _somehow_.

“And a-one!” crooned Deadpool as he used the flat of his blade to knock out Goon1. “And a-two! One two three four!” he sang as he made his way into the building, knocking goons out as he went.

Strictly non-lethal. Spidey would be proud. Or maybe just relieved. Too hard to say.

He laughed as he danced his way through the building. This was going to be the easiest mission yet. He was going to be back in the city before nightfall.

He burst into one room. “Hit you like a wrecking ball!” he sang out.

“No!” screamed the little guy in a white coat.

Deadpool was no stranger to guys in white coats. There were even a few that he currently liked, such as that cute brunette at the iron dildo’s tower who refused to let his fellow scientists try to get blood samples from him.

But this one. Something about this one was raising uncomfortable echoes that he didn’t want to think about too hard. “Man,” Deadpool complained as he walked into the room where the scientist was scrambling. “Can’t you just surrender already. I have dinner plans!” Not that the wall-crawling vigilante knew it (yet), but they were still plans!

“No,” said the madman as he gripped a large red button.

Seriously? A large red button? How cliché could someone _get_?

“You realize that even if you press that button I survive this, right? Well,” pondered Deadpool, “not exactly _survive_ , but _revive_ and in any case you won’t.”

The mad little guy gave a grin. “I don’t mind,” he said before pushing the button.

The world caved in.

Peter first noticed something was wrong when his burner phone didn’t get a text from Deadpool. The man was an obsessive texter, sending memes, pictures, gifs, emojis, etc. Peter barely had time to finish reading what had piled up in the phone while he was working before another one came in. They were always interesting, especially the pictures. Usually, the picture series told a story. One time he’d gotten a picture of a bicycle tire, a kid on the bike with a pizza (Peter remembered that job; it had sucked rotten eggs), a car with a katana through the engine, and a terrified kid staring with a grimace and wide eyes with a perfectly safe pizza in their hands.

It was pretty great, and Peter was about to send Deadpool a kudos for a good job when his phone got flooded with another sixteen unrelated texts. Deadpool liked to talk, but he didn’t really seem to care if anyone was listening. It filled some of the loneliness of Peter’s hours, if he was honest.

(He rarely was.)

So when six hours rolled by without a message from Deadpool, Peter began to get slightly worried. Twelve hours and he was extremely worried. Twenty hours with no word from Deadpool found Peter breaking into the Avenger’s Tower to go through their records.

“Spider-Man,” the soft voice of the tower’s AI addressed him as he hooked up his machines to the computer, “there are several files with delicate information I feel certain you are not interested in accessing.”

Peter thought about that for a moment. He wondered what “delicate information” was. He didn’t care. He had a job to do, and that was it. “I’m just looking for Deadpool’s last mission,” Peter said, keeping his voice soft. If the AI hadn’t informed the Tower residents that the building was getting hacked, Peter didn’t want to.

“Deadpool? Why?” asked the AI, sounding confused.

“I haven’t heard from him.”

“My records indicate that six month lapses in communications with the mercenary are quite typical.”

Peter didn’t have the time to explain that while, yes, Deadpool fell out of contact with almost everyone else, he _still_ blew up Spider-Man’s phone. “Something’s wrong,” he told the computer. “Call it—a gut feeling.”

“Everyone in the Tower agrees that your prescient abilities are not to be discarded,” agreed the machine before the computer by Peter began to whir into action. “That’s why they refuse to invite you to poker night.”

There were so many questions Peter wanted to ask. Such as, _The Avengers have a poker night_ ? And, _They think I can sense the cards_? If that was true, then Peter would have no need to sell photos to a verbally abusive boss between shifts in the lab and patrolling.

Actually, maybe if he was playing poker with someone like, say, the Kingpin…

The machine by Peter beeped and the AI said, “Your device is safe to remove now.”

“Thank you,” Peter said as he took his drive and left. Time to check some information.

Wade woke up, gasping for breath, the weight of the building pressing, pressing, pressing him…

He died again.

So, from what Peter was able to tell, the location that SHIELD had taken Deadpool to was redacted. Probably because they were afraid that someone with fewer of Peter’s morals would find it, but that was beside the point. The important things he knew were 1) where the last picture Deadpool sent him had been sent from and 2) who the agent was in the picture. Apparently, like most non-Avenger supers in New York, Deadpool had a handler.

First thing Peter needed to do was talk to that handler. Fortunately, SHIELD had less security than Stark. And the agent was easy to find, since he was lounging in a break area. “Hey,” said Peter as he drifted down via web string.

The agent looked up and, without missing a beat, said, “I’m not your handler.”

Peter was thrown, but only for a moment. He hadn’t known that SHIELD was so blatant about acknowledging their handlers. “I know that. I’m not here for him anyway, I came to talk to you.”

The agent sighed and dunked a chicken nugget into some foul-looking brown sauce with black spots. “What about?” he asked.

“Deadpool. He’s missing.”

The agent scoffed before eating his nugget. “Not for long enough,” the man muttered. “Pain in the ass, _never_ shuts up—”

Peter was well acquainted with the litany. “Not joking,” he said flatly. “I’m looking for Deadpool.”

The agent rolled his eyes. “He’s probably still under the building,” he said dismissively.

What?

“Under a building?” repeated Peter, his lips numb. He’d been under buildings. And Wade wasn’t nearly as strong as Peter was.

The agent waved a dismissive hand. “It blew up over him.”

“Blew up.”

“He’ll be fine.” The agent dunked another nugget. “He always is.”

Peter took several deep breaths to prevent from unleashing the full force of his rage on this guy. That was bad. He knew better.

Besides, SHIELD had a vested interest in making sure the vigilantes they shadowed didn’t get murderous ideas towards their agents. He really didn’t want to know what they did to enforce it, but he knew they did.

“This has happened before?” Peter asked, just to clarify.

“It happens all the time,” the agent said. “He’ll be _fine_. He always is.”

The debris had shifted, just enough, that there was a piece holding things up and away from Wade’s torso. He could, for the moment, breathe. It was close, so close, like the tube—

The debris shifted again, crushing him once more.

“Okay, so let me get this straight.” The craggy face of the crime reporter stared at Peter in disbelief. “You’re texting buddies with Deadpool.”

Peter squirmed. He’d thought about having this conversation as Spider-Man, but neither Eddie nor Venom had any reason to help Spider-Man. They _might_ help Peter Parker, especially since Eddie seemed to see him as some kind of reckless rookie kid. “Is that really the important part?” he asked.

Eddie ran a hand down his face. “Sorry,” he said. “Just trying to wrap my head around it. You—you’re in contact with _Deadpool_?”

Peter sighed. “Yes, Eddie,” he said patiently.

“And—he texts you—on a regular basis?”

“Usually about every thirty minutes. I don’t think he sleeps. Look, he’s in trouble.”

Eddie stared at him.

The two of them, well, _three_ of them, had actually started getting along. Eddie didn’t see Peter as the only thing keeping him from succeeding anymore, and Venom wasn’t trying to kill Spider-Man. It probably helped that the two of them covered entirely different stories; Eddie went for major corruption and Peter, well, Peter followed the supers.

Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. Peter hadn’t wanted to have witnesses to the conversation, just in case Eddie was able to help. He knew that said help wouldn’t be entirely legal.

The black skin of the symbiote crawled over Eddie until the long black head appeared and the white framed eyes watched Peter. _“_ _You like him,”_ the black creature hissed.

Peter looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. For almost two years, Deadpool had been his constant. The one thing that kept the crushing weight of loneliness away from him. But did that mean that Peter liked him? Or was he just using the other man? He couldn't tell.

“ _You are worried,”_ Venom hissed.

Peter nodded. “I am,” he admitted freely.

“ _We sssshould help,”_ Venom hissed to Eddie.

Eddie gave the black head a wry look. “Yeah?”

“ _Yesss. We wissh to do good, to help. Deadpool wisshess to do good, to help. And Peter likesss Deadpool._ ”

Peter wasn’t certain what that last one had to do with it, but he was up for just about anything that could help. “Will you help?” he asked Eddie, hopefully.

Eddie sighed and rubbed a hand over his head. “Yeah. Yeah, Pete, we’ll help. Gotta save your boyfriend.”

Peter was too happy to protest that Deadpool was not his boyfriend.

Wade’s vision flickered between rock and smooth metal and glass. Rock and smooth metal and glass. Rock and smooth metal and glass. All he knew for sure was that he couldn't breathe. He tried and tried as spots danced in his vision.

The world went black.

“So, where are we going?” Eddie asked as they walked away from the dock.

Peter had protested that he didn’t need Eddie’s help, but the other man had just looked at him and demanded to know when he’d learned another language. Since Peter hadn’t, he gracefully accepted that he wasn’t going to be able to ditch Eddie. After all, he was going to need Eddie’s help in getting _back_ into the US with Wade, after all.

Peter pulled up the coordinates on his phone before showing it to Eddie, who frowned. “How’d you get these?” he asked as he looked at the numbers.

Peter knew he was committing them to memory. “I tracked the phone’s location at the last photo that was sent to me,” he said. He took the phone back and pulled up the photo. “And this guy is a SHIELD agent.”

“Well, if you know that,” started Eddie.

“He told me that Deadpool gets hurt all the time on missions. That it didn’t matter that they left him there, because he always gets back.” Peter knew his voice sounded cold.

He felt cold.

Before this he would have said that rage is hot, that rage will burn someone up from the inside out.

This wasn’t. This was ice cold, this was _glacier_ cold. He hoped he was never in a position where he’d have to defend the agent, because he wasn’t sure that he could.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the hand that dropped on his shoulder. “So, we start there,” Eddie said firmly.

“ _Yesss,”_ hissed Venom. _“And we eat those who make make you cry.”_

What? Why would Venom want to eat people who make him cry? Not that anyone was making Peter cry.

“Ignore it,” Eddie said breezily. “Let’s find a base before we get there. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

Dark. It was dark. It was cold. There was some kind of liquid running along his back. He heard something shift.

He died again.

Peter and Eddie stared at the rubble that used to be a building. “So,” said Eddie, “how were you at the game of Pick-Up-Sticks?”

Peter remembered that game. That was where the player let a bunch of sticks fall out of a tube and then had to pick them up one at a time without moving more than one. “I was better at Jenga,” he said mentioning the game with the blocks where players took turns moving blocks from the bottom to the top until the structure collapsed.

“Channel that,” Eddie said, just before Venom completely covered him. The two of them walked over to the rubble and picked a piece up before tossing it to the side. Peter, careful not to let Venom see him, scaled the side of a nearby building and began calling out pieces that were safe to move, and unlikely to cause the rest of the structure to shift.

Four hours later they reached Deadpool. The merc was badly injured and currently dead. Venom retreated leaving Eddie in place looking at the merc. “Well, this is going to be interesting to explain to the hotel,” he said.

Peter, wary of the crowd that had formed, climbed back down the building and leaped off to run to the body. As he reached Deadpool the merc took a long, shuddering breath and Peter reached under him to hold him up so that he could breathe better.

One of Deadpool’s hands came up and gripped Peter by the throat as the merc sat up, looking around with wild eyes. That was when Peter noticed that the mask was torn beyond usability. Fearlessly, one of Peter’s hands cupped the scarred cheek. “Sh,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay.”

Deadpool’s eyes closed and he fell forward, limp.

Wade was—almost comfortable. His skin felt like it was on fire, as always, but other than that—other than that he was warm, dry, and on something soft. Someone was also holding his hand. He opened his eyes to see an adorable head of curly brown hair.

Who was this? Why was the cutie holding his hand? More importantly, _how_ was the cutie holding the hand with no glove to protect him(her?) from the disaster that was Wade’s skin.

“So you’re awake,” a voice called. Wade looked over to see a scraggly man that he vaguely recognized.

“Do I—know you?” rasped out Wade.

“We haven’t met,” said the man. He nodded to the person holding Wade’s hand. “But you’ve met him. He went looking for you and wouldn't stop until he found you.”

Wade looked back at the curly head with confusion. “Why?” he asked. No one looked for him. They all knew he’d crawl back eventually.

“You’ll have to ask him,” the man said calmly. “But listen.” The man leaned towards him. “If you don’t treat him right, you’ll be,” suddenly the man was covered in what looked like a black and white suit as he hissed, “ _eaten_.” The suit vanished and the man left the room.

The room. Wade looked around the room. It was nothing special, just a generic hotel room. Which—how? The last thing he remembered was being in a building as it blew up.

The person holding his hand twitched and he looked over to see the dark brown eyes open lazily. Wade’s heart skipped a beat as the young man woke up and then realized that Wade was awake. “You’re up! Are you okay? Hungry? Thirsty? How do you feel?” A single, smooth and unmarred hand reached up to cup Wade’s cheek.

Wade had no idea how to tell the guy that he had no idea who he was. “I’m—fine,” he said harshly as he gently grabbed the hand and pushed it away from his face. “Fine.”

The young guy relaxed. “Oh, thank goodness. I mean, I knew you healed fast but you were dead, like dead-dead, and you didn’t know who I was, and you were totally out of it—are you okay?”

This cutie had—worried about him? Wanted to make sure he was okay? “I’m sorry,” Wade said, “but I still don’t know who you are.”

The guy stared at him for a moment and Wade could see tears prickle at the corner of his eyes. “You’ve been texting me for almost two _years_ ,” the boy said with disbelief.

What? The boy pulled out his phone and showed Deadpool—the pictures. The ones he sent Spidey. He looked up at the boy, wondering. “Webs?” he asked softly.

The boy grinned and put a finger to his lips as he nodded. “Peter,” he said, offering his name like a gift.

Like the gift it was. “Peter,” said Wade rolling the name on his tongue. He reached out. “Wade,” he said softly.

“Wade,” repeated Peter. He smiled.

The smile was dazzling. The mere thought that this beautiful creature was smiling at him was making him lightheaded. He could see the edges of the room start to spin.

A knock on the door alerted them to the arrival of Eddie, who was carrying several take-out bags. “I figured someone with a healing factor might need to top off their tank,” Eddie said as he walked into the room. He dropped two of the bags in Wade’s lap and firmly placed a third in Peter’s. “Eat,” he ordered the younger man. “I know damn well that you haven’t eaten since you realized he was missing.”

Peter flushed. “You don’t know that,” he protested.

Eddie snorted. “Shut up and eat your food,” he said warmly. He gave the younger man’s hair a tousle even as he shot Wade a glare. “We’ve got a long way to go in the morning.”

In the end it took a week to get all three of them back to the States. Eddie’s contacts were kind, sympathetic, and ready to help—right up until they learned that one of the people they were helping was Deadpool. Peter didn’t speak Spanish, but he was almost certain that the language he was being exposed to was not appropriate for all ages.

Finally they were back in the States, and then back in New York. Peter couldn't wait to get back to his apartment and just collapse for a couple of days. He didn’t even protest when Wade (and that was a little bit of a thrill right there) started following him home.

His key didn’t work. He stared at the lock with a frown and tried again. “You were two days late on your rent,” said his landlord. “I threw all your shit away.”

Well. Aside from the camera and suit (which he had on him) most of his stuff was pretty disposable anyway. Still. It had been _his_ stuff.

Wade enveloped him in a hug. “Don’t worry,” said the larger man. “You can stay at my place! If—if you want.”

Peter smiled at his friend. “I’d love to,” he said. He allowed Wade to lead him out of the apartment building and down the street.

Down the street. This entire time, Deadpool had lived less than two blocks away from Spider-Man. How had Peter not known?

Well, that was easy. He’d been trying to respect Deadpool’s privacy. He assumed, given how stunned the merc had been when he’d seen Peter’s face, that Deadpool had done the same thing for Spider-Man. No matter what anyone else said, Peter knew that he was considerate like that. It was one of the things he liked

(loved)

about the other man.

Just as they reached the door Wade stopped. “Okay, uh, I’m gonna need to you to stay here for a moment—or five.”

“What?”

Wade opened the door to the apartment and slipped in without letting Peter see inside. Then followed the unmistakable sounds of hasty, “Oh, shit I have company,” cleaning. Peter couldn't help but smile; he didn’t think anyone had ever done that for him before. It gave him a warm feeling. He wasn’t sure what it was yet.

After about thirty minutes (and some seriously concerning crashes and what sounded like one small explosion), the door opened again and Wade grinned at him. “Peter! Fancy meeting you here!”

Peter grinned back. “Fancy,” he said.

Wade stepped aside and gestured. “Welcome to our humble home. And when I say ‘our’ I’m not using the Royal Plural, I’m using the singular plural, as in stating for two people since this is your home too now?”

Peter laughed. “I get it,” he said with a smile. “And yes, this is _our_ home— _for now_ !” He reached up and gently rubbed Wade’s cheek, and Wade pressed into the hand like an overly affectionate cat. “Silly merc,” he teased. “After a couple of weeks you might not _want_ me to live here.”

Wade grabbed the hand and kissed it. “I will never ask you to leave.”

Peter was pretty sure the words came out a lot more serious than Wade had been intending. He blushed and looked down, not sure what he should say. He hadn’t known that Wade cared for him as much as he did; he’d thought that Wade’s attitude was the same towards everybody. He wasn’t used to people caring for him.

But it was nice.

Peter set his stuff down by the door. “Let’s get some sleep,” he suggested.

“You want to sleep? That’s great, bed’s this way,” Wade babbled as he led the way to one of the rooms (and his apartment, unlike Peter’s own, had multiple rooms). “The bed’s huge, so there’s plenty of room if you decide to sprawl none of you will fall over the edge, unlike that hotel.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “The only reason,” he told the merc, “that I fell off the bed is because there was a huge, muscled man in it.”

“Yeah? Wonder who that was,” said Wade with a smirk. The scarred man opened the door and Peter looked at the bed. And blinked. He didn’t know beds even _came_ that large—it was bigger than a king. The bed filled the room (no dresser, no side table, nothing but bed) wall to window, and it was not a small room. Peter was pretty sure the room was bigger than his apartment.

His former apartment.

And it doesn’t sting like Peter had thought it would. He’d thought he would feel some kind of attachment to the place he’d lived in ever since he turned eighteen—but he didn’t. It was slightly disconcerting.

“All right, so just crawl in there—not sure what I was thinking with that bed—or how I got it in there, maybe folded? Eh, not important. What _is_ important is that a certain little spider gets his sleep.”

Peter, used to the rambles by now, folded his arms. “And what about _your_ sleep?” he countered. Wade had to be tired. He hadn’t slept, as far as Peter could tell, for the last few days.

“Aw, don’t worry about it much,” Wade said as he looked away.

No. Peter was not allowing that this time. He reached out. “Wade,” he said firmly. “You need sleep too.”

Wade cringed even as he leaned into the touch. “I can do without,” he protested. “My nightmares—”

Ah. so that was what the problem was. “Wade,” said Peter as he ran a thumb over the larger man’s cheek, “it’s okay.”

“It’s _not_ okay, baby boy,” protested Wade. “I could have hurt you!”

Peter reached up with his other hand and pulled Wade down so that he could press their foreheads together. “You can’t hurt me Wade. Come to bed. Get some sleep.” Wade whined—but obeyed. The two of them laid in the bed as Peter curled around Wade. “Good night, Wade,” he said softly. Wade murmured something Peter, even with his advanced hearing, couldn't catch and was soon asleep.

Peter had known he was exhausted. He didn’t know how Wade normally “dealt” with needing to sleep, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t healthy. Wade didn’t seem to have a lot of healthy coping mechanisms.

Not that Peter was really one to talk.

Later that night, Peter was awake while Wade still slumbered. Peter sat up next to the windows as Wade’s arms encircled his waist. He looked down at the scarred man with fondness and gently rubbed the top of Wade’s head, resulting in him burying his face in Peter’s hip.

Blue light caught Peter’s attention as a hulking form dropped on the bed. Peter looked up into the scarred, craggy face of a one-eyed man with white hair. The man saw Peter and frowned. “Wade,” the man said.

Wade began to stir. True, he only grumbled and pressed his face harder into Peter’s hip, but this intruder was disturbing his much needed rest. Peter glared up at the man. “No,” he said firmly.

The man frowned down at him. “You don’t have a say,” he told Peter.

Peter thought of Wade, broken and buried, under the rubble of a building. Of how he’d been trapped there until Peter and Eddie found him. Constantly regenerating and dying again. He glared up at the man even as one hand drifted down protectively. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I _do_ have a say. And I say that you’re not taking him anywhere.”

The man crossed his arms and glared with his one human eye at Peter. “Do you know what kind of man he is?”

“Yes,” said Peter unflinching, unhesitating. He knew. He knew better than anyone.

“Good.” As Peter stared the man stepped back and white light surrounded him again and he—vanished.

What was that about? At his side Wade whimpered and Peter gently stroked his cheek. “You’re okay,” he said. “You’re safe.”

And he was going to do whatever he needed to do to keep it that way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to do a chapter 2, but so many people wanted more I wanted to give it to them. (Besides, life is crazy right now and these fics are keeping me sane.)

“No,” said Peter firmly as his costumed eyes met the eyes of Deadpool’s handler. Rage still thrummed through his body when he thought about how they had _left_ Wade, left him to die over and over again. Never went back. Never checked on him.

As long as Peter had anything to say about it they would never do it again.

The agent glared at Peter. Peter’s own handler leaned against the wall, watching with an amused smile on her face as Wade watched with wide eyes. “You weren’t invited.”

Peter gave a low hum. “Yeah, see, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said lightly. “When you said, ‘Deadpool, there’s a mission,’ I said, ‘yeah, I’m coming.’ So, you see, I invited myself.”

Wade tried to to be the voice of reason. “Spidey, maybe it would be better if you didn’t go.”

And see, _that_ was the attitude that allowed SHIELD agents to bugger the fuck off and leave Wade to die alone, over and over again. No. Not happening anymore, not as long as Peter had anything to say about it.

The agent turned to Peter’s handler and said, “Control him!”

Peter’s own handler merely raised an eyebrow. Her amused smile didn’t falter once. Then again, she’d been in the office when he’d taken Fury to task over his cavalier treatment of Deadpool.

“Control him?” she asked. “Does he look like a prisoner or a child to you? No,” she retorted before the man could finish speaking.

“You’re a handler,” hissed the man.

“Yeah, no,” said the woman, shocking Peter. “ _You’re_ a handler. _I’m_ a liaison.”

There was a difference? It didn’t matter. Point was, she wasn’t interfering with Peter’s own, personal decisions.

“You know,” Wade piped up, “it’s really not that big of a deal.”

The simple sentence infuriated Peter because 1) it _was_ a big deal and 2) Wade honestly, truly believed it wasn’t. The man honestly believed there was nothing wrong in the fact that SHIELD had not only _left him behind_ , but did so on a regular basis.

Peter hummed again. He knew there was nothing he could do to make Wade see that he really was worth the same kind of consideration as any other hero, but he could stand by his friend. “I’mma go with ‘yeah,’ a big deal,” he said. “And,” he added in a fit of inspiration, “you agreed to go by my word when we work together.”

“Yeah, but—”

Poor Wade sounded confused. “No buts,” Peter ordered firmly. “Just say, ‘Yes, Webs.’”

“Yes, Webs.” Wade shook his head. “No, wait, what?”

Peter felt a _little_ guilty about the fact that he’d tricked Wade. Only a little bit. Mostly, he was focused on making sure what happened in South America didn’t happen again. He could still see Wade, broken, bloody, _dead—_

“So, this job has a time limit, right?” Peter said brightly. “Let’s get a move on.”

As they headed towards the briefing room, Peter heard Wade’s handler talk to Peter’s liaison. “What happened to his last handler?”

“Didn’t you hear? Clark retired.”

Oh. So _that_ was why the agents changed. He should get Clark’s information; send a gift. Congratulate the man on actually retiring.

“You don’t need to do this, Webs,” Wade said softly. “I’ll be fine.”

Peter reached out and put a hand on Wade’s shoulder. “One day,” he said, “you’ll see yourself the way I do. Until then, I’ll go with you on every mission. They might not think twice about leaving Deadpool behind,” he added grimly, “but they’re not going to leave Spider-Man, and I’m not leaving without _you_.”

For one of the few times since Peter had known the man, Deadpool was speechless.

The mission was simple. There was a suspected terrorist base. Their mission was to go in, get intel, get out. Simple enough.

Peter approved of simple plans. In his experience the complicated ones tended to go awry quickly. Still—while he knew (better than anyone) that Deadpool was more than capable of being stealthy, most people didn’t. Most people saw Wade as a loud distraction. And (at least in the people in Wade’s life that Peter had met) as a human cannonball to throw to the worst of the action and to distract the enemy while getting the rescue, intel, whatever out.

Deadpool was quieter while Spider-Man was with him. The two of them silently sneaked into the base, made their way to the control room, and plugged the flash drive that would give the SHIELD agents the access they needed to get the info. Then, to be thorough, they photographed all the hard copy files and sent those over too.

It was harder getting out than getting in, but Peter was used to that. Wade was still (uncharacteristically) silent while they left, but it was nothing that concerned him. It wasn’t a silence that was filled with danger, but more of one filled with intent. Wade had a mission, and Peter was along for the ride.

(Okay. Peter knew that, as far as Wade was concerned, he _was_ the mission. Mission: get Spider-Man out alive and back to New York. Peter would take whatever worked.)

The SHIELD copter was gone when the two of them got out. “They _left_ us!” said Wade, outraged.

Peter would have felt better if that rage was on Wade’s own behalf, but he knew it wasn’t. “They did,” he said calmly.

“How can you be so calm about this?” demanded Wade.

“Easily,” Peter quipped back. “I expected this to happen.”

It wasn’t hard to know what the SHIELD goon expected. He expected that Peter and Wade would contact SHIELD, Peter panicking because he didn’t know how to function outside of New York, and that Peter would learn his lesson and never try to tag along on one of Deadpool’s missions again. Peter had expected that behavior long before he had presented himself as the tag-a-long that couldn't be ditched.

So Peter, even though plans were not his forte and he was usually more of wing-it kind of guy, had a backup plan. He took out his cell (boosted for signal anywhere in the world, thanks to the Stark tech he’d “acquired” on the job) and called his backup. “Hey, Clint,” he said when the archer picked up. “You remember poker night?”

Peter had finally gotten an invitation to poker night. Of course, he’d lost his powers and they had thought (mistakenly) that would make him an easy mark, but they’d reckoned without the knowledge he’d gotten from his Aunt May, the ultimate card shark who’d taught him everything he knew _before_ he’d gotten bitten by the spider. Long story short; he’d taken them to the cleaners, and most of them now owed him favors.

“And what favor are you claiming from me?” drawled the archer. Peter could hear a dog barking in the background.

“Aw, is that Lucky?” Peter cooed. “Give Lucky scratches for me.”

“I’d do that anyway. What do you want?”

“A ride. I was with SHIELD on a mission and they left me in—where are we?” he asked Wade.

“Paraguay.”

“We’re in Paraguay.”

“Wait.” Clint’s voice was suddenly serious. “What do you mean, ‘they left you’?”

“I mean,” Peter said firmly, “we went in, got them the file transfers they said they needed, and they were gone before we got out to the extraction point.” A moment of silence on the other end. “You there? If you can’t come get us, could you send someone who can? I’ll still count it as the favor you owe me.”

“Yeah. Be there soon.” The phone clicked off.

“Oh, I think Clint might be stealing the jet,” said Peter smugly.

“Baby boy,” said Wade, somehow having heart eyes through his mask, “you are positively diabolical.”

Peter pushed up his mask and pecked Wade on the cheek. “Only for you,” he said, meaning every word.

Well, Peter might have been “diabolical,” as Wade put it, but SHIELD was slow at learning. The next several missions ended with Wade and Peter stranded, again, in other countries.

Peter called in his favor from Widow to get out of Syria.

He called Falcon to get them from Burma.

He called War Machine to get them from Nepal.

He called Eddie to help them out of Zambia.

When they needed to get home from Belarus, Iron Man himself came, in the Avengers jet, to get them. He was not happy, and took them straight to SHIELD headquarters to demand an explanation of how they kept getting left behind. “Wilson, I’d understand,” Tony ranted to Fury as Peter watched with satisfaction and Wade watched with wide-eyed wonder, “but it’s not _just_ Wilson. And there is no reason, no Goddamn reason, for SHIELD to be leaving Spider-Man behind on missions!” Tony stood there, panting and glaring across the table at Fury.

Fury tapped his fingers against the wood of the table. “You’re right,” he said grimly. “There is no good reason for this. I’ll see to it that it won’t happen again.”

And it didn’t. Wade got a new handler, and Peter’s liaison got reprimanded for not informing Fury of what Wade’s handler was doing. Wade was now safe with SHIELD. They didn’t dare leave him behind.

Not that Peter trusted them. He was going to stay with Wade, and keep going on missions with the man, in order to keep him safe. Because Wade deserved to be safe.

And Peter would keep telling him that until he believed it.

**Author's Note:**

> This story doesn't have a beta reader, and all constructive criticism is welcome! (And I haven't forgotten about any of my long fics.)


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